


Teardrops

by Deadlybeautyblue



Series: Fallen [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, Multi, Ryan is a cop, Small amounts of violence, Undercover AU, but not for the whole story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-02
Updated: 2015-12-02
Packaged: 2018-05-04 12:18:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5333840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deadlybeautyblue/pseuds/Deadlybeautyblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, well, maybe more than just sometimes, someone in Los Santos, someone full of light and joy, falls into darkness, where others wait with open arms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> I promise later chapters are longer.

James sat at his desk. Adjusted his ficus. Straightened some papers. Moved the tide of Diet Cole cans to the trash. Replaced his desk lamp bulb. The words of the chef still hung in his mind, burdening him. "You're going to infiltrate the FAHC. From now until the end of your assignment you are Ryan Haywood, also known as the Vagabond. Good luck." James, no, Ryan now, checked his desk for clutter one last time, then took the keys to a fast black car in the impound lot. From then on his life was lived in snapshots. Most of them revolved around the bitter taste of tears.


	2. Closets and Back Alleys

The first time Ryan cries, it's in the back of a closet full of winter coats and a shotgun and boots and bongs and it smells like weed and all the moral rules Ryan just broke. It's dark and musty and Ryan's hand is clenched tight around a hundred dollar bill, tears streaming down his face as James rebels inside of him and tries to send him back to the precinct. The door breaks open and closes and a figure presses itself up close to him. Ryan can't make out any features but it's like when Joe the Cat would cuddle with him after particularly bad jobs. A hand makes small circles on his back, and James goes back to sleep and lets Ryan take over, and Ryan really doesn't want to be awake right now, so the most feared mercenary/cop falls asleep in a closet. (He wakes up and there's a coat tucked around him and he's alone. He discards the figure as his imagination)  
  
The second time he cries it's in a back alley and there's a corpse at his feet, dead from a wound to the heart from his gun. He needs to lay low, to hide. Saltwater fills up the crooks and crannies in his mask and he moves disjointedly, his body moving like a puppet on a string. He staggers through back streets and makes his way to the apartment that no one knows about not the cops, not the fake ah crew. The mask is thrown to the side. The face paint is scrubbed off. Ryan sobs and mourns the innocence of his life that he keeps burying in deeper and deeper graves. The face paint is re-applied, the mask is retrieved. (A shadow flits away from the heavy curtain over the window that leads to the fire escape. A thin beam of light touches the sofa as The Vagabond hits the town.)


	3. A Cactus and a Sick Day

The third time that Ryan cries, he's holding a cactus, and he knows for a fact that it'll flower at its crown when it's properly cared for. His ficus had been fussed over, and ever since then, houseplants had been appearing. Gavin in particular had taken a shining to succulents. But to give him a cactus after a heist? Ryan couldn't help the tears. Geoff laughed a little. "Dude, we've genuinely gotten to like you. If getting you plants is gonna get us this response, damn right I'm gonna keep giving them to you."   
Jack added with a smile, "You're family now."  
Bodies crush around him, everyone wrapping him in warmth and comfort, making him part of the family of criminals.  
(Look a little to the left, our shadow has a face. He smiles proudly at his handiwork. The net tightens.)

The fourth time, Ryan is curled up on the couch and Gavin is pressed against him sharing his body heat as Ryan shakes with sickness. The rest of the crew keeps bringing over blankets and tea and heating pads and Ryan can't help it when his eyes begin to fill up because he literally only has a cold, but they sat him down and spoiled him rotten. "You okay there buddy?" Geoff says, clearing away the dirty dishes from next to him. "We do this whenever someone gets sick, prior plans be damned. We take care of our own."   
Ryan sniffled and took one of the controllers that Ray offered to him and Gavin. (Our shadow has gotten so close, tucking themselves into the spaces that Ryan didn't know needed filling.)


	4. Returns and Nightmares

The fifth time Ryan cries, he's trying to be James. The precinct called him back, and his hastily made excuses covered his retreat. They called him back to yell at him, and he knows this, knows he's gotten too out of control, but it feels right. But Ryan needs to go away, and James needs to be here. He ducks into an alleyway a few blocks away and tries to compose himself, tries to be James again. He searches within himself for James, the goody-two-shoes, the do-gooder, but all he can see is ner-do-well Ryan, filling him up with criminal knowledge. He finds a hint of who he was before and clings to it, the overwhelming feeling of change causing him to sob aggressively in the alley, As he cries, Ryan pushes down James. He can work with aggressive and violent. Ryan glances around. No one saw that except the night. (He's not alone of course, his shadow followed him, and the shadow wishes he could follow Ryan to the police station, follow him through the doors, but it's far too bright there)

The sixth time Ryan cries, he's back in the closet, late at night. It's warmer here, and it smells like the FAHC, criminal and weed and guns and gunpowder and the perfume that Michael sprays on his leather jacket. He knows he should find the smell of the police station more comforting, but after the nightmare he just had /Gavin had pointed his gun pointed at him and/-the scent of the crew was preferable. The closet door creaks open and Ryan squints into the dark and /the cops stood around Gavin, and blood streaked down his face, he looked at Ryan and/-the door closes and a keychain flashlight dances over strange shadows and Gavin settles next to Ryan, fitting into place like the shadow had before. "You okay?" Gavin said, hand making circles on Ryan's back. Ryan opened his mouth to answer and /Gavin said "I'm sorry" and threw the gun to the ground, kicking it to Ryan and bullets crash into him, turning him to black smoke and Ryan woke up/- Gavin switches off his flashlight and leans against Ryan, and Ryan cries. (He wakes up in the closet again with a coat wrapped around him but his hand is holding a keychain flashlight with Gavin scratched in the paint.)


	5. Free Falling

The seventh time Ryan cries is the next day, not from fear or from sorrow, but from joy, falling from a helicopter. Jack is chuckling over the radio, saying something about not forgetting to pull the chute, and Ryan laughs, loud and long and clear, and pulls the chute and the wind rips at his eyes and leave tears on his cheeks but Ryan is laughing and having a whale of a time. Something in the back of him mind asks when the last time he had genuinely had fun was, when did he last laugh like this, like the laugh is bubbling up through his lungs and out into the air. The wind catches him, pulling him over the desert."Never" says the voice in his head. "This is the first time you've been euphoric." Ryan wishes he could deny it, but then again... Ryan lean into empty air, the chute full and open behind him, laughter still ringing in his lungs. "This is the first time you've strived for more than content" the voice says, and Ryan listens. "Stay" it says. So Ryan drifts in the sky with a head full of joy, a keychain flashlight in his pocket and knife at his side and Ryan decides to stay. (The shadow isn't here. Something is terribly wrong, but no one knows a thing.)  
  
Ryan lands, and meets Gavin at an old safe house where Gavin is already behind the wheel of a supercar. This is the prelude to the eighth time Ryan cries. They drive through the desert, wings of sand flaring out behind them until sirens shout out through the still evening air. Gavin guns it, Ryan slows enough to lead them on a merry chase around the desert. By the time the cops catch up (not the cops, his colleagues) he's leaning against his car whistling an aimless tune. One of the cops, Barb? Eh who cares, opens their mouth to say something but Ryan is high on adrenaline and cuts her off. "I'm staying. Take me off the payroll, delete my name from the database, revoke my honors, do whatever. I'm staying with the crew."  
The gathering is silent. Someone says softly, "C'mon James, let's work through this."  
Ryan laughs and opens the door to the supercar. "Sorry," he says, hints of amusement in his voice, "James is dead." The roar of the the engine fills the night. Ryan lets tears he was holding roll down his face and melt James away. (The shadow, no, the wildcard watches from afar. He texts Geoff the location of the metal box he's about to bury. The phone thunks into the box and the box is sealed. A whisper fills the evening. "Ready, set, go.")

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, if you've made it this far, please leave a comment and tell me what you think!


	6. Interlude:Tears that Fall

Ryan can't sleep, he's convinced it's his fault. More often than not wakes up with dried tears on his cheeks in the back of the closet, hand closed around the flashlight. No one tucks coats around him. Not this time.  
\---  
Jack spends lots of time on the roof, and no one mentions the red eyes lined with dark circles. No one really notices either. The light of the FAHC has been extinguished.  
\---  
Ray and Michael got in a fight. Ray spends his time working his way through his game collection. After a while, he starts joining Ryan in the back of the closet. The darkness swallows everything except for the light of the ds. Ryan's flashlight doesn't work.  
\---  
Speaking of Michael, one would think he'd become rage incarnate, but the opposite happens. He rarely leaves his room, and if you get a good look at him, he shrinks away. He fiddles with the tacky cheap charm around his neck and Ryan thinks of a slow burning fuse when he sees him.  
\---  
Geoff drinks and plays with the lid of the metal box Gavin left behind. His phone, his comm, his aviators and a note that says 'Goodbye' over and over, the pencil lead leaving ruts in the paper. There are watermarks on that note, ones that weren't there before.  
\---  
Gavin doesn't cry, at least that's what he says. He can't mess up. He holds his head high and makes his demands in some town off the highway, some tourist shop, somewhere besides Los Santos. He does turn over the batteries for the flashlight he left for Ryan in his hands like a good luck charm. Gavin doesn't cry, he claims, but no one can prove that, so let's just assume he does.


	7. Nine, Ten, back to where we started again

The ninth time Ryan cries is in the car lot. Ray was in the closet, Geoff was slumped over the bar, Michael was letting the light of the TV play over his gaunt face and Jack was presumably still in the roof. And Gavin was gone. So Ryan went to the car lot. He curled up in the back car he'd taken from the impound lot at the precinct when he first set out and pulled out the flashlight. He pushed the on switch, knowing already that it wouldn't light up. Usually this made him melancholy, gave him strange nostalgia for a time with Gavin but tonight, well, tonight was looking up. Sort of. Ryan unscrewed the lid and tried to tap out the batteries to see what he'd need to replace them. Out fell a tube of rolled up paper. Ryan blinked at it, the dashboard lights illuminating this scroll. His hands were shaking even more than the first time he shot someone, more than the first time he spent the night at the penthouse. He unrolled it, flattening it on his leg. In Gavin's handwriting, there was a phone number, not the one he'd given the crew, and a note. Sorry. It said sorry. Below that was more: don't tell the others. Call me. Ryan was dizzy. Tears drifted down his cheeks. Gavin wanted to meet him. He hadn't abandoned him, he's just been waiting. Ryan clutched his cell and punched in the numbers one after another.

This is the tenth time Ryan cries. He holds the phone as the ringtone echoes in his ear and someone picks up. "Ryan?" That's Gavin's voice, for sure. Ryan nods, then says shakily, "Yeah."  
"I need you to meet me somewhere. Ok?"  
It's startling how calm Gavin sounds, a stark contrast to the strange tension that fills the penthouse. "Ok" Ryan says, because anything is better than another day wallowing in guilt.  
"Meet me at your secret apartment, the one you went to after you shot that cop. I'll be there soon." The line went dead. Ryan blinked and let out a watery chuckle, face paint he'd put on habitually turning into a mess. He scrambled through the car and up to the steering wheel. He'd brought the keys with him, part of his mind already knowing that he was leaving. Now, he had a destination. The car pulled out and shot into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the end of this section! I'll probably post the rest of the series tomorrow or the day after, as well as some dribbled I wrote in this verse, and scenes that didn't make it in.

**Author's Note:**

> Yo this was inspired by Satansprettyprose on tumblr, who came up with this idea in the first place. You should go check them out. This story was originally submitted to them, but I polished it up to post here.


End file.
